Every week I will be posting a new topic titled "Episode Discussion". In this we will discuss an episode, what we liked about it, what we didn't like, etc.


Episode 49 - Fire and Ice

A thief with diplomatic immunity kills MacGyver’s investigator friend. So MacGyver reluctantly teams with his friend’s sister to catch the thief and have him deported.

[COLOR=blue][COLOR=blue]Votes from March 2006

Poor [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Average [ 0 ] [0.00%]
OK [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Good [ 3 ] [33.33%]
Excellent [ 6 ] [66.67%]
Total Votes: 9

Archived comments

did anyone else ever sit wondering why Danny stepped away from the car and just stood covering his face...waiting...waiting...waiting...waiting for that SUV to hit him.

I'm pretty sure if I saw a car heading towards me.. I'd be inclined to get out of the way, not step into its path and stand there waiting for it to hit me.

I like this episode even though MacGyver didn't do a lot of improvisations. I liked it because this is the first episode they introduced the role Nikki Carpenter. If you want to remember what other things happened read the Fire and Ice episode summary.

I also wonder why Danny just stood there when he could have easily jumped inside the car or the hood. Maybe he was suffering from lack of adrenaline?

My favorite part would be when Nikki had to make a mold of the key and had to borrow a bar soap from an unattractive man in the shower. Bwahahaha! What I didn't like is the anti-climactic escape from the "gas chamber".

Yeah. That was a puzzle. Why did Nikki stand watching MacGyver shut off the cylinder in the room filling up with gas when she could have just gone out the door?? They should have at least locked them in so there would have been a sense of urgency about shutting off the gas!


I thought Nikki and MacGyvers meeting was great and set up their relationship for the show nicely. I like Nikki and would have liked to have seen more of her. First she smacks him on the head, then she calls the police on him...The start of a beautiful friendship!

Because I think it was the gas from the welding rig they've dragged in and pushing that little button to open the door might've made a tiny-tiny spark and then a big-big kaboom if they didn't turn the gas off. *shrug* I don't know, just a thought.

I do regret that Nikki got written out of the show. I think Mac and her made a really great team.

Because I think it was the gas from the welding rig they've dragged in and pushing that little button to open the door might've made a tiny-tiny spark and then a big-big kaboom if they didn't turn the gas off. *shrug* I don't know, just a thought.

but he didn't wait for the gas to disperse before opening the door. It's a strange one.

I also wondered why Danny stood helpless while the car bore down on him. How come deer stand in the road - in car headlights before the car hits them? They just freeze. Maybe something similar happened here??

All and all great interaction between Mac and Nikki. Pete said in "Blow Out" "...Have you two ever thought of having a normal conversation?..." Hehehehe! I think each one sensed an emotional threat in some way from the other - which actually turns out be be why they were really attracted to each other. Interesting beginning...

Yeah. That was a puzzle. Why did Nikki stand watching MacGyver shut off the cylinder in the room filling up with gas when she could have just gone out the door?? They should have at least locked them in so there would have been a sense of urgency about shutting off the gas!


I thought Nikki and MacGyvers meeting was great and set up their relationship for the show nicely. I like Nikki and would have liked to have seen more of her. First she smacks him on the head, then she calls the police on him...The start of a beautiful friendship!

Well I guess theres to points here...

1 - It wouldn't be very smart to just walk out and leave the room filling with gas

2 - They needed to give the bad guy time to get away...

So.. it makes sense that they might as well turn off the gas while they are giving the bad-guy time to get away.

I always had the feeling that they knew he would do something like that, and it was part of their plan.. thats why Pete was waiting for him back as his house.... I don't think there was meant to be a climatic escape.. its was just part of their plan.

Just so, Rock. Nikki even said something to the effect:
"We just knew that he was going to do something like that!"

Just as they knew he'd take the briefcase that Mac had rigged to spring open.

It's all part of The Plan!

Wow! Glad to have found this forum. I didn't know people still actively talk about this show. Which is great!

I agree with laarell4241, I wish they hadn't axed the Nikki character. Although, I got confused the first time because I recognized the actress as "Lisa Kohler" from the episode Lost Love. So I thought, wasn't she supposed to be really dead now?!

At any case, I still loved the episode. So many things happened.

Yes, the same actress who played Lisa also played Nikki. They tend to recycle actors a lot which can get irritating. Still, I like the Nikki character.

You know what, I never made the connection. Now that you mention it I see it. Wouldn't be the first time though. I just figured out that Colson in the very first episode was Pete Thornton. *shrug* but that's just me, I have a photographic memory for everything except people's faces.

I liked this one a lot. It had some good MacGyverisms and it introduced Nikki, who is a very major character.

I realy enjoyed this episode... The only complaint I have i that when MacGyver was asking Nikki questions to make sure she was who she said, he answered all of them. She could easily not have been his friend's sister based on her responses.

Love the part where Nikki and MacGyver kiss, his reaction is like dang.

I voted average. It would have been a more interesting episode if Danny had told Mac about his sister and that she was helping him with the investigation, and then introduced Mac to his sister Nikki. I liked the end when Mac says this is for Danny and the diamonds fall out of the briefcase.

Too me the character of Nikki was to forced. She played Mac for a fool, and I agree with him it wasn't called for. I agree with everyone else if I saw a car coming at me full speed I would've jumped out of the way or over the hood. I just wouldn't stand there and let it hit me.

My thoughts exactly.Definitly a duh! moment.

I wonder why Mac never tried to push Danny out of the way? I mean he had enough time to do it.

Watched this one last night for the first time in many years. I remember not liking Nikki originally, but I found myself liking her a bit more this time around. I didn't like how she played Mac for a fool with the stolen car bit, the first time I watched it and still don't, but I did find things I like this time around that I didn't catch when I watched it when it aired originally.

When they are caught in the library, the kiss was funny. Nikki thought quickly and Mac, while caught off guard at first (cute facial expression) played nicely off of her lead. Also liked when Nikki's response to Mac's question, "Where'd you learn how to do that?" after knocking out the guard, "In sunday school..." Also like the quip about not being able to rappel in that outfit, yet Nikki did just fine.

I also liked the fact that the sting was so well thought out....right down to the investigator who followed Nikki around and told the diplomat that he was being set up.... I totally forgot about him and was suprised at the end when he was working with Mac and Nikki on the sting.

The thing that bothers me with Nikki is that Mac seemed to know more about Danny's long distance sister, than she did about Danny's closest friend. I know they didn't grow up together and probably didn't see each other often, but didn't Danny ever mention his friends to Nikki...maybe she didn't pay attention to what her brother was telling her.

Overall, A good episode, probably could have been excellent, if I didn't have issues with Nikki. She grows on me more in the other 3rd season episodes though.

Not a bad episode. I love the chemistry between Nikki and Mac - I forget if they finally get together, so don't tell me! I didn't see all the early episodes because the show only started when I was a toddler, but I hope they finally hook up.

Rather disappointing to know that they don't! Nikki would have been a perfect girlfriend for Mac!

I did like this episode a lot, but there are some plot holes, some of them already mentioned by other posters here.

How come Mac didn't know *anything* about Danny having a sister? Maybe they didn't meet, but I still find it a bit odd. I'm not too close to my own brother, but I still have some pictures of him on display.

And the car accident scene--why didn't Danny just move away, or why didn't Mac try and push him away? Maybe it's just bad editing, that it was supposed to happen in slow motion, but in that case, it wasn't very well done. Slow motion in a closeup is pointless, it will just seem like the person totally froze.

The Mac/Nikki relationship works really well in this episode, and she comes off as a more resourceful and likable character than many other episodes. (More on that later...) The kissing scene was very well "improvised," they both looked so guilty!

I can definitely see the difficulties though, had they decided to keep her. I'm glad, however, that they did become good friends later on.

I couldn't help but laugh at the sweat suit Mac was wearing during the squash game. All right, I've seen worse, and we're talking 80's clothes fashion here... but still...

As a cover up operation episode, the plot is very suspenseful. I was thinking how more difficult it would have been to pull off a similar stunt today, because of the (darned... ) Internet. To make it plausible today, they'd have to create pretty fool proof online identities for all the people and the companies involved, which would indeed have taken some effort...

I, too, think the title of the episode is perfect for a first meeting between Mac and Nikki.

I'm uncertain, though, how to grade it. Either a weak "Excellent" or a strong "Good." I'll go for a strong "Good."

This is only episode where Mac is wearing a sport jacket and linen pants

I personally loved Mac's reaction AFTER Nikki kisses him with the tie. And his reaction when Nikki knocks out that guy. XD

And... of course Mac's peeping over the fence.

I like Nikki as a character. I felt she was a good friend to Mac, despite their differences. I wish they had kept her as a regular as just a friend. Though, personally, I'm not the biggest fan of them being more then that. But, that's just me.

Hehehe, JediFerret, it's definitely not just you.

Paramount was literally mail bombed by female fans of MacGyver, demanding them to get rid of Nikki (which they did...). Most likely they saw her as a potential girlfriend. I wouldn't use such extreme methods, but Mac is definitely a loner, and I'm glad they kept him that way.

In my opinion, they could have kept Nikki as a returning guest star, as a co-worker at the Phoenix--not necessarily sharing assignments with Mac, and definitely not as a love interest, but simply as a friend. She had much more potential as a character.

Nikki was introduced with the intention of becoming a love interest, as was Maria in S6. Both times, the fans rose up in wrath and made their wishes clear, and for better or worse, Nikki and Maria were each axed before things got too serious.

From my own perspective, both times, they did a lousy job of developing a good female foil for Mac. Nikki had potential, but was wasted; I found the realtionship with Maria creepy, and I'm very glad it's so minimal.

In Nikki's case, it was a deliberate attempt to mimic the central relationship of Moonlighting, which was the All Time Greatest Hit at the time. It was a bad idea, because MacGyver was not Moonlighting and didn't need to be. That's TV-Land for you. But that's why Nikki's character originally had the fire-and-ice relationship (a very good title indeed, as you said, NightTinkerer)!

The most frustrating thing for me was that Nikki's character was dreadfully undermined by uneven writing. (I think she was at her best in this episode, before they started to mess around.) They had her character all over the place, and frittered away the actors' on-screen chemistry with the gratuitous, artificially antagonistic relationship.

It would have helped if they'd actually given Nikki a reason to be persistently hostile to a person that almost everyone else automatically warms up to. As it was, she's pretty much the only non-villain in the show who disliked him. It bugged me so much I finally had to write a fic that gave her a chance to explain herself.

What's truly ironic is that now, 25 years later, MacGyver is better known and has aged more successfully than Moonlighting!

Oh yes, I basically agree with you on all points here! And haha, seriously, I must say I didn't remember "Moonlighting" at all!! After some research, I realized why; over here the title was translated into something that simply means "illegal job[s]"... not 100% true to the original meaning, and definitely not catchy. I certainly didn't watch it, anyway...

I'm just about to review "GX-1," and will elaborate more about Nicki in that thread--but I agree, they certainly didn't give her a reason to be persistently hostile to Mac either...

At the start of this episode Danny tells MacGyver that the password is "Blue Ice".

I recently heard Blue Ice mentioned in another show and decided to look it up...

It seems the most common definition of the term is...
"Blue Ice is the frozen sewage material dispensed mid-flight from commercial aircraft lavatory waste tanks, a biowaste mixture of human waste and liquid disinfectant that freezes at high altitude. The name comes from the blue color of the disinfectant."

Gross.

Oh Man...KiwiTek, that is Gross!! Ewww, not sure I wanted to know that one. I believe I will just think of it as a reference for a beautiful Diamond instead!

I thought this was a great episode. The interaction between Mac and Nikki was really good. Mac did know Danny had a sister and Nikki said "so You're MacGyver"...which I took to mean that Danny had mentioned each of them to the other, though they never met.

Personally I like the sting episodes (except the one with the ditsy Phoenix lady that mentioned MacGyverisms...I didn't like her at all), though I know several others did not. I liked how well developed their plan was and that they predicted most of the bad guy's actions correctly. I got a kick out of seeing Mac play the rogue brother!!

The best part was Mac saying "this one's for Danny"!!